Badlands Media - Badlands Media Special Coverage: 10/13/26 - First White House Press Briefing with Katie Zacharia

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Katie Zacharia steps up to the podium for her first briefing as the new White House Press Secretary. She opens by thanking President Trump and the American people, then walks through the midterm blitz: last night's rally in Youngstown, Ohio, the new Navy submarine component repair center coming to Cleveland, and upcoming stops in Alaska, Arizona, Montana, Georgia, Kentucky and Florida. From there she covers real wages, prescription drug prices, manufacturing jobs, energy dominance and the Venezuela oil deal, trillions in new investment including a $15 billion steel complex in Iowa and a South Korea energy package, the administration's fraud recoveries, Greenland and the fight against fentanyl. Then she takes questions. Nick Gilbertson of Breitbart asks about the new media seat Karoline Leavitt opened up, and Katie says it stays and will expand. Peter Doocy asks about her role heading into the midterms and about intel sharing with Ukraine. Alina Shirazi asks about Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle, who the White House has asked to resign, and how Katie will balance the job with her four kids. Here's the full briefing.

The badlands, one of the badlands, explain those badlands. That's a hell of their name. Good morning. I am so honored to work for President Trump and the American people as the new White House press secretary. I want to thank President Trump for his trust that he has placed in me. I have wanted to work for him for a very long. time. I'm looking forward to working with each of you as well, especially as we are in the middle of the midterm blitz with energy and excitement, never seen before in the history of midterms,

thanks to President Trump. Just look no further than last night in Youngstown, Ohio, where President Trump delivered another blockbuster rally out on the trail. The arena, was overflowing with enthusiasm as thousands came out to support President Trump, as well as special guests, Jake Paul, and football legend John Gruden. The president also announced the Department of War has officially selected Cleveland, Ohio, as the new home for the U.S. Navy's submarine component repair center. This massive 46,000 square foot facility will manufacture repair, and maintain key parts for virtually all new and existing submarines.

This is historic. Everyday Americans are showing up in droves to attend these rallies because of President Trump's America First Agenda of lower taxes, higher wages, and one of my favorite secure borders. But it doesn't stop there. President Trump is planning to hold rallies in Alaska, Arizona, Montana, where I will be with him, and Georgia, building off of the incredible momentum generated over the last several days from his stops in Tennessee, New York, Texas, and Nebraska. He is an energetic president.

Attendance is at record highs as enthusiastic, hard-working Americans are lining up and packing arenas to support President Trump and Republicans. It's not hard to see why. President Trump is fighting and delivering for American workers every minute of every day. Real wages are up, 1.2 percent since President Trump took office, which, we have to be. with average annual earnings outpacing inflation by $800. Under Biden, real wages fell nearly 4%, with the average private sector workers' annual purchasing power declining by nearly $3,000 annually.

President Trump is the first president in modern history to actually lower prescription drug prices, delivering the biggest drop in 63. years. President Trump has created more than one million private sector jobs in his second term, including nearly 112,000 factory construction jobs, and 72,000 manufacturing jobs this year alone. And thanks to President Trump, we are once again bringing back American energy dominance because energy security is national security. President Trump, secured the biggest oil deal in world history, delivering the U.S. majority control of more than

65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in Venezuela. He had a historic one-day war, and now we have a booming economy and a great relationship with Venezuela. The U.S. achieved record domestic oil and gas production in 2025 and record crude and petroleum product exports in 2026. Building off of his historic boom in energy production, in the first 15 months of this administration, we have secured trillions of dollars and new investments, trillions of dollars, including $1.4 trillion dollars from the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion from Apple, and $340 billion from Amazon. No other president could have gotten these steel's done. Just weeks ago, President Trump announced that Masabi Metallics will build a massive

$15 billion steel complex in Iowa, the largest steel plant ever built in the United States. This facility, a historic facility, will create 1,750 new permanent jobs and support up to 6,000 construction jobs and generate an estimated $95 billion in economic output. In addition, President Trump and Endurall announced Arsenal 2, the biggest American shipyard push since World War II in Maryland. This new facility will create about 3,100 direct jobs and support more than 11,000 indirect jobs. President Trump also unveiled a South Korea energy investment package of up to $200 billion in the United States. This is an amazing deal. This includes as much as $120 billion to build eight,

to build eight large-scale nuclear power plants, something we've needed as the United States and something President Trump promised on the campaign trail and something President Trump is delivering on just like he delivers on every promise. In addition to that, we will be, we will be, there is $54 billion tied to the Alaska LNG pipeline and terminal to service the Pacific Rim and sell fuel to our allies, as well as $22.3 billion for a six-gigawatt natural gas power facility in Texas. Not only is the Trump administration bringing in trillions of dollars to invest throughout the country, but we are also protecting your tax dollars by addressing fraud head on. Since taking office, the Trump administration has uncovered

over $260 billion of fraud, stopped $72 billion of fraud annually through administrative actions, and recovered $58.9 billion through indictments, settlements, and settlements and civil monetary penalties. Above all, President Trump is working to secure the Western Hemisphere for centuries to come. President Trump signed an unprecedented agreement giving the United States lasting control over security interests in Greenland. President Trump has used the power of tariffs to stop China from producing fentanyl precursor chemicals. The fentanyl killed many of our citizens, and he is hard at work and ensuring that that won't happen.

And here at home, fentanyl trafficking across the southern border is down 56%. And fentanyl-linked deaths plunged 22% in a single year because of President Trump. This is a president and administration that is looking out for you, the American people and I'm thrilled to officially be part of this incredible journey together. And with that, I will take your questions.

Here in our new media seat, we have Nick Gilbertson from Breitbart. Hi, Katie. Welcome to the briefing room and congrats on the new position. One of the things that your predecessor, Caroline Levitt did, is open this room up to more voices, not less. At Breitbart, that's something our founder Hintra Breitbart certainly believed in, and whether that's adding this new media seat, adding new media voices to the pool. Can you tell us what you plan to do to continue to ensure that new media voices continue to be heard here at the White House? Yeah, well, firstly, my predecessor, Caroline Levitt, did an incredible job, and I completely agree with the choice of new media seat.

We are absolutely going to keep it, and we're going to expand on it to the extent possible. We love new media, and we want to be able to embrace it. Absolutely. And then just to follow up, too, you did touch on presidential travel. The president's been all over the place, and you kind of laid out of his schedule over the next couple of days. But is it only going to intensify here in the next couple of weeks up to midterm? Absolutely. You can expect more of the midterm blitz.

Just now we've added Kentucky, and we have a few other stops as he goes down to Florida. So it'll be Georgia, Kentucky, and Florida. that. Yes. Hello, we will take Peter Ducey. Thanks, Katie. Nice to meet you. You're starting as White House Press Secretary, three weeks before a midterm cycle,

the President Trump himself says will be very tough for Republicans. Is your job just to speak about White House matters or is it to make things less tough for Republicans in the midterms? Well, Peter, I get to do what I was doing. on the outside already, which was hoping to amplify, multiply, and expand upon President Trump's incredible agenda for the American people. And what I hope to do in this position is to take that into an official capacity and only build on, only amplify, and only multiply to the extent possible all of the wins he's making for Americans. For Americans to understand how much has changed

in this brief period of time, what he's been able to accomplish, my goal is to be. be able to communicate that in complete tandem with the president as he is his own best spokesperson and will absolutely be leading the way as with that and i want to ask a policy question has the u.s stopped sharing intel with ukraine i'll have to get back to you on that alina shirazi yes alina shirazi hi hi congrats on the job thank you first of all and i have two questions for you. I can. First of all, on Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Daily Mail has been reporting on her since last year. The president said yesterday to reporters that he is considering firing her. Do you know a timeline for that and also potentially who could be on the short list to replace her if he does?

We have asked Ambassador Guilfoyle to resign. She has been a wonderful asset to the team and we wish her well. Okay. Second question for you, if I may, a personal question. Your family is in California, your husband, you have four children. I'm wondering how you manage, how are you going to manage that? Caroline Levitt left because she wanted to spend more time with her family. And also, did she give you any advice on how to handle this job and the people in this room? Well, first of all, I want to give my husband an amazing shout out. We have four kids ranging from 12, 10, 8, and 6.000. six, three of them are boys, so we have a handful. And I adore my family. I love them. They are my priority. I love being with my kids. The idea of not spending evenings with my kids is, kids are,

is completely unacceptable. So my president, excuse me, my husband, that's a good one. My husband is out here, is out here for the week because we have two birthdays in our family and we are very, very protective of celebrating birthdays as a family. So he brought the entire crew out here. Bless him. It's a lot. And we will be moving out here. And as far as your second question is, yes, Caroline has been an incredible support. She gave me great and wonderful feedback on how to balance. I think this job is not one you necessarily balance. And I would love to share that in my career, I stayed home with my kids from 2014 to 2020 in the process of having them. And then when I started working again, I was able to integrate them into my life.

There are many photos of which are not public of the kids and I at Fox Bureau, where they are sitting with me in the pod before it hit. So I intend to, to the extent possible, include my family, include my kids in my work, though my work will be demanding, they will always be a priority. And President Trump is the most family-friendly president we've ever had. He has hired more women with families and the fact that he knew I had four kids and he knew that this job would be demanding and still places trust in me shows that I know I'm capable of being able to step up to that. So thank you for that question. In fact, I am going to end it because President Trump is heading out to Marine One for our historic trip to Alaska.

And we can ask him all of the questions out there. So thank you so much. To the question on the president will be back on Thursday and that's what I will answer. I'll leave it there. He will answer those questions out and bring. He will answer those questions out and bring. The people are you going to go into the states? I'm sorry.

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